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Various considerations explain why the Souls going forth from
the Intellectual proceed first to the heavenly regions. The
heavens, as the noblest portion of sensible space, would border
with the least exalted of the Intellectual, and will, therefore,
be first ensouled first to participate as most apt; while what is
of earth is at the very extremity of progression, least endowed
towards participation, remotest from the unembodied.
All the souls, then, shine down upon the heavens and spend there
the main of themselves and the best; only their lower phases
illuminate the lower realms; and those souls which descend
deepest show their light furthest down- not themselves the better
for the depth to which they have penetrated.
There is, we may put it, something that is centre; about it, a
circle of light shed from it; round centre and first circle
alike, another circle, light from light; outside that again, not
another circle of light but one which, lacking light of its own,
must borrow.
The last we may figure to ourselves as a revolving circle, or
rather a sphere, of a nature to receive light from that third
realm, its next higher, in proportion to the light which that
itself receives. Thus all begins with the great light, shining
self-centred; in accordance with the reigning plan [that of
emanation] this gives forth its brilliance; the later [divine]
existents [souls] add their radiation- some of them remaining
above, while there are some that are drawn further downward,
attracted by the splendour of the object they illuminate. These
last find that their charges need more and more care: the
steersman of a storm-tossed ship is so intent on saving it that
he forgets his own interest and never thinks that he is
recurrently in peril of being dragged down with the vessel;
similarly the souls are intent upon contriving for their charges
and finally come to be pulled down by them; they are fettered in
bonds of sorcery, gripped and held by their concern for the realm
of Nature.
If every living being were of the character of the All-perfect,
self-sufficing, in peril from no outside influence the soul now
spoken of as indwelling would not occupy the body; it would
infuse life while clinging, entire, within the Supreme.
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